


The Dark Shore

by Qype



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 13:40:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22496980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qype/pseuds/Qype
Summary: There are more things in this world than what you can see. Adults don't believe, but children, well, that is another story.
Kudos: 1





	The Dark Shore

**Author's Note:**

> First work, and first time posting! Criticism is welcome, flames are not (nice comments and kudos preferred though!)

Chapter 1

Andy was falling. He’d been falling for quite a while now, after he tripped when he was checking his closet for monsters. Obviously, he was right to do so, no matter what his mum said, because he was currently falling through a dark hole that came from the floor of his closet. So clearly, if he could go down, other things could come up, even if the kitchen was meant to be under his room, not a never-ending tunnel.

Andy supposed that he should be panicking more, but he’d been in the dark for a while now. He didn’t have a watch, it was something he’d requested for Christmas and this just cemented his decision to put it on his list, but he’d thought it’d been about half an hour, which was a long time to just be drifting in a vague downwards direction in the dark.

Suddenly being thrown out of the dark into what appeared to be an abandoned home, complete with derelict furniture and a few tons of dust was jarring. And painful. His left wrist was aching worryingly, and as Andy scrambled to his knees, he could feel his shoulder protest the movement, forcing a sharp hiss of air out of pursed lips.

A pale hand was thrust into his face, long fingers tapering off into surprisingly pointed ends. Looking up the arm the hand came from revealed a very sharp looking man. Woman. Person? The ambiguously gendered person was just as pale as their hand, the only spot of colour on their whole person was their very green eyes. He’d never seen eyes that green, almost luminous really. They were currently focused on him and Andy realised he’d just been staring at this stranger in silence whilst they were trying to help him up. Grabbing the offered hand, he shivered. They were freezing, could humans be that cold? 

“Thank you,” Andy said. 

“It is no problem young man.” The strangers voice was smooth. Musical, if he was being honest, Andy was almost jealous. “It is quite fortuitous that you have arrived at this moment, we are in great need of your help. May I have your name?” 

Andy’s mum had always told him to be polite to others, which was why he had no problem with giving out his name to strangers. 

After all, what could someone knowing your name do?

“I’m Andy Williams, pleased to meet you. What’s your name?” 

“You may call me Renside, Andy Williams.” They were smiling so Andy tried to grin back. His lips felt stiff, as if he was fighting his own muscles.

A cold shiver snaked its way down Andy’s back and he trembled involuntarily. It felt like all his body below his neck had just been dumped into a lake in the middle of winter. His hands were numb and, whilst his fingers seemed to almost pop as if he had the most severe form of pins and needles every recorded, his feet were just as unresponsive. His neck was tingling, and there was a rush of heat flowing over his face. It felt like his ears were going to burn up they felt so hot. 

His chest felt so cold. 

It was over in a second, his body returning to normal as quickly as it had turned as the memory faded from his mind, “You said you needed my help Renside?” 

Can a smile grow bigger without the face seeming to move?

“Yes, Andy Williams, we do. You see this land you are in is called Hevir and it is in grave peril. To the North, amongst the cliffs and waves lives the Nukla-vi. It is a terrible beast, its breath is foul enough to wilt crops and kill livestock, everywhere it walks drought and plague follows. It has terrorised the northern seaboard for eons, but the Màthair of the Sea has always been able to confine the beast back under the ocean. But She never returned to the surface this spring and it marches along the cliffs as we speak.” Their bright eyes were fixed unerringly on Andy’s face as they spoke, their gaze weighted. There was a twisting sensation around his feet as if vines were growing around them, rooting his feet to the ground.

“All hope is not lost, for you have arrived, just as it was foretold. A mortal child will fall into our realm, brave of heart and pure of soul, and they shall vanquish the beast and return the Sea Màthair to her rightful place atop the waves. Andy Williams, I believe you to be this child, as you fell from the heavens as it was mandated. Can you feel my words ring true, Andy Williams?”

There was a moment when it felt like all of time just stopped. The dust motes that had been floating serenely amongst the beams of light stood still in the silence. 

Andy’s head felt foggy, his body was swinging between hot and cold and tiny shocks were travelling up and down his spine. A prophecy? That sounded… that sounded right. There was a prophecy that he was going to kill a… a monster and rescue a woman? Yes; he could do that. He got good marks in PE after all, and his mum always called him her hero. All the stories about kids in strange worlds spoke of prophecy and triumphing over evil. To think he was about to join their ranks. 

Cold air burned his lungs as Andy gasped for breath, hunched over a gnarled branch masquerading as a staff. His chest burned bright with triumph as he looked out at the wild sea below. 

He'd made it. 

The journey had been rough and long, there had been many moments when all he wanted to do was go _home_ and sleep in his warm, comfortable bed instead of upon the cold ground, curled up amongst the leaves and ferns like a dog kicked out overnight. Only he had no home to return to once morning dawned. 

The only part of his original outfit left was his tattered red hoodie, darkened with sweat and dirt and only a little blood, from when he’d tripped in the first few days and sliced his arm upon the ground. He’d traded his jeans for plain cotton trousers when they had become unwearable, the material stiff with grime. Well, stole might have been more accurate, running from a small farm once he had his hands upon some clean clothes. They hung off him oddly, slightly bigger than comfortable but clean and soft, something his own clothes hasn’t been for weeks. 

The enraged farmer had set her dogs upon him as he fled. That had been a terrifying few days, hiding amongst the trees and running for as long as he could in efforts to avoid the canines. He only escaped them after he had run up a river for a few miles. His feet were scratched and sore, slowly weeping blood for a few hours, socks ruined. He was lucky nothing got infected.

When he’d next travelled through a village, Andy was warier, but it appeared that they hadn’t received any news of a thief, and he had fit in much better in clothes of this world. He still ended up fleeing the village, running full pelt down small alleys that wound back upon themselves as his arms were full of more stolen goods, this time food, pies and buns – luxuries he hadn’t had since before he fell through his floor. He ended up gorging himself hidden within a bush. It was a bad idea. His stomach used to eating only the food Andy could find within the forests of Hevir, foraging for berries and roots, after the rations supplied by Renside had run out, protested violently. 

There was a miserable week spent getting soaked to the bone in the torrential rain as he got closer to the North. Andy had spiked a fever and with no medicine or help around had curled up in the gnarled roots of an ancient oak and had to wait it out. He’d never missed his mum more.

But to look out at the endless blue expanse before him made it all worth it. He was nearly there, could prove that Renside was right to believe in him. Sitting on the edge of the cliff, he watched as the sun painted the sea with fire as it set in the east.

Turning toward the setting sun, all the breath in his lungs was forced out. Smoke curled along the horizon, small sparks of light flickering in the distance as fire consumed a cluster of ramshackle houses.  
Getting closer, the air smelt of blood and faeces and burnt flesh. The grass underfoot was withered and dead, bushes yellowing before his eyes as leaves turn to dust. 

Entering the village there is no hiding bodies. They lay where they fell. Many have been thrown against the sides of the streets, but more lay in pools of blood, victims of horrific wounds. The fire kept on spreading. 

His lungs fill with ashes, thick and choking. He tells himself that the acidic miasma that hangs over the town is causing his tears as they streak down his face. 

Andy’s ten and this is the first time he’s seen death.

Stepping through the town, he wishes he had shoes, something to cover his feet from the gore that coats the ground. Andy tries not to think about what he’s walking through, tries to distract himself from the man with glassy eyes, throat gaping, jagged trachea poking through, surrounded by the destroyed tissue of the throat. 

Vomiting, he aims away from the corpses. They stare at his hunched over form anyway. 

He ends up skirting the edge of the town, the fire on one side making total avoidance impossible. He tries to focus upon the tops of the buildings, looking out over the cliff edge at the sea that had impressed him so only hours before. Deep lines are carved upon the walls, smashed roofs mimic the broken bodies of the owners below, damage that could only have been made by something much taller than any human. Something stronger.

Large hoof prints lead away from the town, marked in the blood of the slaughtered. They remind him of the horses he rides every summer with his mum, but he’s never seen prints as big as these. 

Andy follows the tracks with a single-minded intensity. He’s never hated anything like he does this creature. When Renside had told him about it, he thought he understood the horror of the Nukla-vi, the tragedy of a creature that kills all the crops and livestock leaves in their wake. But nothing could have prepared him to see the destruction caused by this creature on a rampage. Every time he closed his eyes there were small children lying discarded in the streets, intestines spilling out of burst stomachs like pile of snakes, blood and bile and _deaddeaddead_.

Brushing aside a branch, he forces his way into a clearing using his staff. Eyes fixed firmly on the indents it took a moment to register the lack of sound. The forest had gotten quieter as he traversed it, bird calls coming less and less frequently, animals in the brush fleeing on silent paws. But the silence had never been as total, as suffocating (as scary). His neck felt weighted, the very air seemed to push his head down as the atmosphere whisperes _don’t look don’tlookdon’tlook_.

**And Andy Looks Up.**

A few feet away from his face is what looked like a horse’s head. If you doubled the size and removed all the skin. Muscle glistened in the cool air as the monstrous horse head tossed and pulled. Sinew writhed with every movement as tendons flashed white below red meat. Black blood pulsed within arteries, thin membranous covering looking like it would burst with every unnatural beat. Andy was reminded of a video they showed in school where insects burrowed below the skin of a deer to lay eggs, the way they moved below the skin. His stomach turned and bile burnt a line up his throat. 

One malevolent red eye burned in the centre of what could kindly be likened to a human head. It was thrice as large as a normal mans and hung heavy over the exposed torso, which melted seamlessly to the back of the horse. It had a protruding lower jaw which jutted out, teeth curling up and over black lips and white bone. Long arms hung down to the ground, dragging heavy claws. The whole beast stood around fifteen feet high, head below the dense canopy of leaves above.

Andy stood before the behemoth, feeling like David about to face Goliath. But Goliath, for all his monstrous height and strength, was still human. Still bled red, thought and felt like everyone else. The Nukla-vi (and that name felt too small for this creature; felt too mortal. It was not its name, but what it had been christened by the people, in an attempt to make it something they could understand. It hadn’t worked) was the sea, endlessly smashing against the cliffs, violently chipping away, _eroding_ , as patient as the creatures of the deep where it made its home. Nothing could escape it in the end. It was folly to even try. 

Its eye, burning with dark fire, was focused straight on Andy. It stared, empty, and within held the hollow promise of the future, of war and famine and disease and _deathdeathdeath_. 

They held each other’s gaze for a long moment before it Moved. Andy was diving before he even registered the movement, body trying to keep itself alive without conscious input from the mind. A grotesque hand smashed into the ground behind him, throwing up dirt as it carved a furrow into the earth. Then he was running and skid- _duck!_ – ding, reacting as the Nukla-vi swung its arms in long loops hoping to catch the boy on its sharp claws. Darting around another wild swing, Andy’s thoughts were racing as adrenaline flooded his body.

What was he _doing_ , what had he been _thinking_ , he was _ten_! 

He couldn’t even fight Evan Milanese at school, what made him think he could take on a supernatural behemoth from the deep? He didn’t even have a _weapon; his broken stick didn’t count!_ A tree crashed through where he had just been standing and fractured. Splinters rocketed towards him and embedded themselves in his skin. Blood dribbled down from a cut on Andy’s forehead, obscuring his vision.

Okay, he’s got to focus on the now with the flayed monster trying to kill him, not his very questionable life choices leading up to this moment and the being that – _mind-controlled?_ – him to get him to agree to this madness. 

Andy gave up on his zig-zagged avoidance to try to dash around the Nukla-vi, which for all the damage done had remained stationary. Stabbing at it with his stick (Andy can’t believe he’s managed to keep a hold of it), he tries to break past the creature. 

In all his efforts to stay out of the creatures reach he had forgotten the more inhuman aspects of the beast. The horses head whipped around, teeth the size of his hands snapping wildly at the small boy. 

Pain whited out his vision as the teeth crunched down on the delicate bones of his left hand. His knees buckled as the beast _twisted_ and with a terrible _wretch_ it tore Andy’s hand straight off his arm. The torn-up stump was bleeding at an alarming rate, leaking vessels and shattered bone even as he tried to curl around his missing appendage. 

The swipe that sent Andy through a tree seemed like more of an afterthought, a way to ensure the demise of their opponent than an attack. As Andy attempted to pulverise the trunk of an ancient oak with his body, Nukla-vi turned, moving for the first time. It came closer and one huge hoof was raised, “Please no,” before slamming down on the fragile torso of the child. The shadows curled around the monster as it disappeared into the gloom, leaving the broken body behind.

His body felt warm, like he was floating underwater looking out at the world. All the sounds were muffled, the world quiet. The sky above shimmered, stars poking through the trees as pinpricks of light. The corners of his vision were starting to black out. Andy was tired. He had _tried_ so hard, but the monster was just too much. No one could blame him for failing, no one could beat it alone. 

His last thought before he closed his eyes was, ‘Who would tell his mum?’.

The twisted trees cast dark shadows upon the wild flora below, as strange calls echoed chillingly from deep within the forest. One could almost be forgiven for missing the dark figure gliding toward the tree line. The closer they got to the edge of the forest, the darker they appeared to be, not merely black in colour but seeming to absorb all surrounding light. When their feet crossed the unseen boundary, the forest seemed to sag in relief. They carried on their march until they stood next to their companion, the difference between the two striking. 

“You must stop telling them that they have been chosen. It will come back to haunt you one day, not all the mortals you have bought here have died after all.”

The other being shifted, a minute movement that would have been missed if their surroundings had not frozen in fear of the beings.

“This one got further than most. Maybe next time it’ll be true.” 

“He didn’t even have a weapon! How did you expect him to do anything against even the simplest of creatures let alone He Who Controls The Deep.” The figure in black appeared agitated without moving at all, a most impressive feat. 

Their words were ignored as the figure clad completely in white turned to walk away from their compatriot, swirling mists hastening their disappearance. The last words to echo back to the being in black were almost lost amongst the heavy air. “The beast’s appetite must be sated. If the mortals must lose a few of their young, then so be it.”


End file.
